12 comments:

I never could figure out how Sullivan could be an observant Catholic, conservative and a gay activist. He is a thinker, and I think the contradictions wore him down. It's too bad. I appreciated his writing and his thoughts in the past, but that Andrew is gone.

Mr. Sullivan has gone from stating that there is a Fifth Column (not just a handful of al-Qaeda associated operatives) in America working with the terrorists to undermine the nation to claiming that the US is currently under a "thinly-disguised military dictatorship."

The latter claim (one of the reasons for the Goldberg piece) was made two months before Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took over leadership positions in Congress.

It fits nicely with his personality and his blog practice. For Sullivan, it really is "All about ME." He has never allowed comments. Notice how he quotes his readers without identification. Let no one else get between Andrew and his public!!! IIRC, early on he was caught once or twice quoting without attribution someone's post to their own blog as if it was an email from one of his readers. He will occasionally intentionally not link to someone's specific post that he is criticizing - strikes me as an effort to keep himself as "gatekeeper" of the information and sole interpreter for his readers. Apparently he is afraid if they go there themselves they may not have the same opinion as he does. All too often, that is exactly what will happen if they do.

One thing Andrew is about is money. His infamous fund raising campaigns of yesteryear a clear example of his snake oil qualities: "bandwidth runs me hundreds of thousands of dollars" so you must throw me a dime or ten grand would be better! The book has a new cover, the book hasn't sold well to date, so he's doing his best to sell it to the new constituency he has painstakingly built up over the last year: Greenwald and the like. Can't blame him, I guess, but seeing right through him is not pleasant. Ultimately, I don't think it sells many books either. My take on Andrew: love made him wacky. There are worse ways to disintegrate.

He used that (in my opinion, ridiculous) font earlier in the week when he was hawking his book by highlighting a positive quote from one of the creators of "South Park". So I don't his use of this font demonstrates that he is hypocritical or acting shrill. (I thnk e. cliff pegged why he uses the font.)

So just looking at Sullivan's site quickly I see four quotes. Two negative ones from the founding magazine of the conservative movement and a well respected conservative radio talk show host. Two positive quotes from Salon and Harper's. About a book called The Conservative Soul.